


The Truth About Cats

by in_way_too_deep



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff, Gen, trcexchange18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 07:18:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17279537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/in_way_too_deep/pseuds/in_way_too_deep
Summary: What starts as bird envy turns into Kavinsky accidentally dreaming a non-standard pet of his own. K knows nothing about cats, but experience is the best teacher and there's no better way to learn than by starting big.





	1. Chapter 1

Kavinsky rarely slept deeply (he rarely slept at all, but that was beside the point), which meant that he woke up the second he felt a weight on his bed. Within moments Kavinsky was sitting up, gun cocked and loaded, ready to shoot. It had become his standard reaction to being startled awake. It had scared many a hungover party guest, but he was grateful for his quick reaction time. He hadn’t had to use that particular skill as of yet, but he’d been found vulnerable and utterly defenseless while he slept too many times before to take any chances. Besides, the people who mattered knew better than to enter his room, let alone wake him.

That made the unexpected touch even more alarming. As surprised as he was, it took him longer than usual to comprehend what he was seeing. He felt he could be excused for the delay because it had been a long time since he'd last dreamt something unintentionally. Thankfully, what had appeared on his bed was one of the less terrifying of the unintentionals. It still could have had some weird dream power, but he doubted it. It just seemed like a normal cat.

So far, the only abnormal thing about it was its brilliant purple eyes and its size. If what he gathered from how it was draped over his legs was accurate it weighed about 25 pounds and, as his eyes adjusted to the night, it looked to be the size of a small dog. Upon closer examination Kavinsky realized it was neither a small dog nor a big cat, but a normally sized jaguar kitten.

Kavinsky considered killing it while he still had his gun aimed but ultimately decided against it. He lowered his weapon when the creature rolled on its back and swatted at him playfully. That gave him pause and he finally decided to turn on the lights. It had been a while since he’d dreamt anything unintentionally, but it had been at least a decade since he’d dreamt anything even remotely nice unintentionally.

For a moment he just sat there mystified, but eventually he gave in and reached out to pet the cat’s stomach like it wanted. It – a she apparently – immediately latched onto his wrist. Her claws were sharp, and K went to pull away, but she just grabbed his wrist back in and started licking at it. He’d never had a pet before, and he knew fuck-all about cats, but he doubted she was being anything but friendly.  

It was only when Kavinsky saw her golden coat start to gain more black spots that he noticed he was bleeding. He finally liberated his arm from her grasp and looked at it. As he held it up the blood started flowing in rivulets. Bloody wrists and he were well acquainted, though, and he’d grown to like the way his arm looked dripping with blood. After a minute or two he looked away from the sight his wrist had become and tried to take in everything about his new creation. With some intensive thought he was able to determine what had probably caused the dream.

The previous day had been fairly innocuous, but for some reason Ronan’s pet raven was all anybody seemed able to talk about. At first it hadn’t been a big deal - Kavinsky had known about the raven for a long time and thought it was cool enough - but by the end of the day he’d had as much as he could tolerate. People were way too impressed by a stupid bird. Lynch could have created any animal he wanted, and he’d chosen the fucking school mascot.

For a while that had been that, but then it wouldn’t leave him alone. He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he’d never created a living being. Sure, he’d forged a couple, but he’d never made one from scratch like Ronan fucking Lynch had done twice over (the dream monsters didn’t count for shit).

It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it bothered him. _He’d_ taught _Ronan_ about dreaming. He was in all ways more advanced in the craft than him. Yet now Ronan was the one receiving endless amounts of attention for some pathetic piece of shit dream-bird. He realized the obsession must have seeped into his subconscious or something and made him dream the cat, but he still had no clue what to do with it.

He supposed it wouldn’t be much different than a regular house cat, but he wouldn’t have known what to do with that either. Obviously, she’d need food and a place to shit, but that was the extent of his knowledge; but, while he hadn’t gone to sleep with the intention of taking on any form of responsibility, he had to admit having a jaguar was pretty fucking cool. The awesomeness of it could, quite possibly, make the work worth it.    

He still had no desire to clean up cat shit, but he figured he could dream up some sort of magic plus-sized litterbox and be done with the issue. Then he’d just get steak or fish at the store or something and be good. It seemed simple enough, after all it was just a pet, what could go wrong?


	2. Chapter 2

A lot.

A lot could go wrong apparently.

He'd had the thing for just one weekend and she'd already destroyed his bed. It wasn’t even just torn up either. No, the mattress had literally been shredded while he’d been at school. Scattered in pieces. No longer existent but as a memory.

He wasn’t going to lie, it was pretty damn impressive, but it was even more inconvenient. To punish her Kavinsky had made her go into the backyard, but when he’d gone to let her in, not five minutes later, she’d been gone. Before he’d even had a chance to panic, she’d jumped back over the fence and padded up to him innocently, but she wasn’t alone.

Or, more accurately, she’d brought back a souvenir from her travels. She threw the Chihuahua’s corpse down at his feet with pride and he instantly recognized the gaudy collar. He’d hated his neighbor's yappy little dog from day one, but he hadn’t necessarily wanted it dead and he definitely never wanted to deal with its mangled remains. It was soon a non-issue, though, as the cat grew impatient with him and decided to eat it herself.

K didn’t have a weak stomach, but it was hard not to gag at the sight. Still, her eating it meant he didn’t have to clean it up _and_ he wouldn’t have to worry about feeding her that night, which had become quite the ordeal.

Not only would she only eat certain types of fish and the most expensive cuts of beef, but she also ate A LOT.

Like a metric shit ton.

Money wasn’t an issue (thank god), but that didn’t mean he liked running back and forth to the store every other day.

To make matters worse he hadn’t even had a chance to show her off to his friends yet. Everyone had been too busy with some bullshit or other to stop by but, thankfully, that was about to change. He'd finally gotten everyone to agree to meet at his place that night and had to admit he was proud of his creation.

She may have been a piece of shit that ripped everything apart when he was gone too long, but she was also growing quickly and looked dope as fuck. He planned to start taking her out with him soon, but first he had to dream up some official-looking paperwork, because he just knew that he'd need it (especially considering how many cops had grudges against him). Once he got that done though he planned to take her everywhere. Lynch and his stupid bird would see his cat and piss off.

Just as he was debating whether the irony of getting a Jaguar would be worth abandoning his Mitsu, he heard Jiang's car pull up. The screech of his tires as he slammed to a stop was only slightly less telling than the K-Pop blaring from the car’s speakers. He didn’t bother moving from where he sat nursing a blunt on the couch is his basement, knowing his friends would let themselves in.

Apparently, the noise of the other cars had been covered by Jiang’s obnoxiousness as he heard all of them as they entered his house. They all rushed down the stairs, as carelessly as always, and spilled into the room. Swan immediately went to fall onto the couch next to K, and had to throw himself away at the last second when he heard a menacing growl

For a minute nobody spoke. Kavinsky had nothing to say and the others were having trouble comprehending what they were seeing. Eventually Skov broke the silence, “What the fuck?!”

Before K could supply a response, Swan added onto Skov's statement. “Yeah, man, why the hell is there a fucking tiger on your couch?!”

K couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “It's a jaguar, moron.”

Jiang interjected before Swan could start a fight and said, “Not the fucking point, Kavinsky.”

At that K lit up, letting his apathetic guise fall to explain the glory that was his cat. “She's fucking awesome, right?”

Swan sounded hysterical when he said, “She almost fucking bit me!”

“Well, you almost sat on her.”

“So, I deserve to become lunch?!” When K just shrugged uncaringly, Swan grew even more agitated, pulling at his hair. “What the fuck, K?”

Skov translated Swan's question. “Yeah. Why do you have a damn jungle cat in your basement?”

Kavinsky snorted. “Because she didn’t want to stay outside.”

Swan was not a fan of Kavinsky's snarky response. “Why do you have a fucking leopard at all?!”

“Jaguar.”

With a hiss through clenched teeth Swan rephrased his question caustically. “Why do you have a fucking _jaguar_?”

Kavinsky just exhaled a large cloud of smoke and shrugged, but before anyone could grow irritated enough to punch him, he explained. “I didn’t plan on it, man. She came out of my damn dreams.” His friends knew better than to ask about his dreams, so they remained silent. “Pretty fucking sick though, yeah?”

Skov and Swan stared at him with varying shades of exasperation and disbelief, but Jiang nodded full-heartedly. “Yeah, she's dope. What’s her name?”

Skov rolled his eyes but gave up trying to fight the idea. “Yeah, it better not be something lame like ‘chainsaw'.”

K scoffed. “She doesn’t have a name.”

Swan saw that there was no changing anything, so he let the strangeness of the situation go, as he frequently had to do when faced with Kavinsky. “That's pretty fucked.”

“What?”

“You can’t just not name your pet, man.”

The cat interrupted K's queued response by batting him with her paw and meowing pointedly.

Swan grew concerned again. “Does she fucking understand English, K?”

K looked at him like he was a complete idiot. “Why the fuck would she know English?”

“I don’t know, maybe because she fucking reacted to what I said?”

“Coincidence.”

Swan let out a relieved snort. “Thank-god man, if you’d made a cat that could understand humans I would’ve–”

“She can.”

“What? I thought you said–"

“I _said_ she doesn’t understand English.”

Swan had to take a deep calming breath. “Imma fucking strangle you if you say she understands Bulgarian or some shit you asshole.”

“I won’t say it then.”

K's habit of being a dick and taking joy out of purposefully misleading people was getting to Swan. He moved to step forward to confront him in a more real manner but stopped, foot in midair, when the cat growled in a warning more severe than the first. “Talk about pussy, you need a fucking cat to protect you.”

Kavinsky’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

After Skov elbowed him, Swan sighed and stepped back. “Nothing, K. Just shit talk.”

“No, no, no. You had something to say, I want to hear it.”

Jiang disagreed. “Just drop it, Kavinsky.”

Kavinsky sat up straight and gave his friends a long, considering look. “You all thinking the same thing?” It was obvious they were, but it was also obviously a rhetorical question. “Well, someone better fucking enlighten me or I’ll ask the cat if she’s hungry.”

The threat wasn’t taken seriously by anyone, but Jiang resented being manipulated. “You know what? Fine. You want to know what Swan meant?”

Skov tried to stop him like he had Swan, but Jiang just gave him a nasty look and continued.

“You think you dream jaguars and guns because you’re a badass, but you’re just fucking scared.” Kavinsky hadn’t said a word, but the cat began growling before Jiang even finished speaking. Jiang just spoke over the noise. “Lynch dreams birds and shit because he can protect them, but you – you can’t even protect yourself. You need to dream shit up for that.”

Kavinsky was shaking with what looked like rage, but when he spoke the tiniest catch in his voice betrayed how deeply he’d been hurt. “Get the fuck out.”

It was clear Jiang had gone too far and had hit close to home with his comment, but it wasn’t something easily undone. They stood there like idiots until the jaguar jumped off the couch and approached them threateningly.

His friends left the basement and within seconds K was alone once again.


	3. Chapter 3

Kavinsky didn’t have to prove anything to anyone – himself included – but he couldn’t help but wonder if Jiang’s comment had a grain of truth to it. Obviously, it wasn’t completely accurate. He was a badass and so were his things, but maybe there was more to it.

The jaguar had been an accident. K had no idea why his subconscious chose that as a pet. All that meant was that he didn’t know for certain that Jiang was wrong. The fact of the matter was that he didn’t go to sleep without his gun and having the cat in the house made him feel safer.

But really, the problem was that his friends had noticed. As unobservant as they were, his fear must have been extremely obvious for them to recognize it. Having unobservant friends was supposed to protect him from such unwelcome insights, but apparently his weakness was just that glaring.

The cat ran from where it had been sleeping on the balcony to the doorway of his room and interrupted his introspection. When she started growling, he stood from his bed. It wasn’t until he heard a knock at the door, however, that he grabbed his gun. No one came to his house and he hadn’t seen his friends for a week (almost a new record), so it was safe to say he wasn’t expecting company.

 When he opened the front door, he led with his gun. At the unsurprised, unimpressed, expressions on his friends faces he lowered the weapon, but saw no reason to put it away completely.

“What’re you fucks doing here?”

Proko replied, “Can we come in?”

“No.”

“Come on K, we’re here to make things right. You don’t have to be a dick about it.”  

Kavinsky turned and walked away, but he didn’t close the door, so everyone filed in behind him. They followed him to the kitchen where Swan began an obviously rehearsed speech. “I'm sorry about last week's fight.” The words were so un-swan like it was laughable. “I was really stressed out about my exams and this paper I'm writing, and I just snapped.”

Kavinsky’s was still pissed but Swan’s words, as rehearsed as they were, made it less overwhelming. “That doesn't excuse how I acted, and I promise I won't let it happen again.” It was hard to hold onto his anger quite as tightly when Swan started reading from his hand. “Next time, I'll let you know when I'm tense instead of just going off like that. You're a great friend who deserves better, and I hope you can forgive me. Give gift.”

Swan only noticed how poorly he’d done when Kavinsky started cracking up. Proko violently tossed a plastic convenience store bag at Swan and said, “Good job shithead.”

“Hey, it wasn’t that bad!”

Skov cocked his head and spoke sarcastically. “What paper has you so stressed out then?”

“English.”

Kavinsky snorted. “Dude, I’m in your English class. We don’t have a paper.” Swan went to speak, but Kavinsky wasn’t done. With a roll of his eyes and a pointed look between Swan and Jiang he said, “But next time you bitches are on your fucking periods, let me know.”

Jiang grumbled under his breath before grabbing the bag from swan and dumping the contents on Kavinsky’s lap. “Just take your apology gift and shut the fuck up.”

His eyebrow rose judgmentally as he pulled out a white gold necklace as thick as a heavy-duty coil chain. “Not my style.”

Proko rolled his eyes and snatched the chain from Kavinsky’s hands. “It’s not for you, stupid. It’s for her.”

“Lady Caine.”

“What?”

“The cat’s name.” Kavinsky then spoke in Bulgarian and managed to get the cat to sit in front of him so he could put the collar on.

All his friends took a step back when they saw her, surprised at how much she’d grown.

Skov whistled appreciatively, “Shit, K. What’ve you been feeding her? Steroids?”

Swan joked alongside them, but there was an undeniable thread of fear in his voice as he spoke. “Yeah. Looks like she weighs more than me.”

Proko snorted. “And that’s saying something.”

Jiang chimed in above the beginning of their playful bickering, “It must be some dream shit. That’s not a normal jaguar size.”

Kavinsky shrugged while adjusting Lady Caine’s new collar. “I don’t know, but she’s a beast. You should see her in the jag.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Jaguar F-Type Convertible V8 R AWD.”

“You got rid of the Mitsu?”

“No. The Jag’s for Lady Caine.”

Swan rolled his eyes. “You’re pussy whipped.”

“Whatever, I just don’t want her fucking up the evo. I don’t give a shit about the jag.”

“Are we gonna see it?”

“What?”

“The car, dumbass.”

Kavinsky stood and started walking towards the garage. Halfway there he turned around to address his friends. “Coming or what?”

They joined him on his path out to the car with Lady Caine trailing behind leisurely, grudges relinquished and friendships repaired.

Swan’s apology was a far cry from perfect, but it was genuine, which was worth much more.

“For real though, K?” Swan’s voice carried over the chatter. “We have a paper due Monday.”

Well fuck.  


End file.
